


When it Was Dark I Called and You Came

by mytimehaspassed



Series: Moon Fever [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:32:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles waits three months by the front steps, his ghostly hands not quite touching the dust on the banister, his ghostly feet not quite touching the rough, hard wood of the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When it Was Dark I Called and You Came

**WHEN IT WAS DARK I CALLED AND YOU CAME**  
TEEN WOLF  
Derek/Stiles; Lydia/Jackson  
 **WARNINGS** : ghost!AU; (so obviously) main character death  
 **NOTES** : Moon Fever Series

First: [You With Air](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/26839.html)  
Second: [Nothing But Heart](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/27050.html)  
Third: [As We Walk Into the Night](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/27153.html)  
Fourth: [With the Heart of a Child](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/27466.html)

Stiles waits three months by the front steps, his ghostly hands not quite touching the dust on the banister, his ghostly feet not quite touching the rough, hard wood of the floor. 

He waits through three full moons with his ghostly heart still and silent in his ghostly chest, waits through three full moons with his ghostly mouth closed, with his ghostly eyes shut. 

Sometime around the fourth month, Jackson knocks quietly on the door, and Stiles flickers to the attic so Jackson won’t see him, flickers to the attic and peers out the small window there, and watches as Jackson backs away from the door and looks around, watches as he looks up, watches as he calls Stiles’ name once and then twice and then three times, Jackson’s voice muffled and small from where Stiles can hear him. And then Stiles watches as Jackson disappears into his Porsche and drives away. 

Jackson doesn’t come back again. 

And Stiles waits. 

***

On the night of the fifth moon, Stiles follows Jackson’s car to Peter’s house. 

He had forgotten the winding roads, had tried to remember in the dark sometimes, sitting in the attic recreating a map of Beacon Hills in his head, trying to remember all the bumps and turns, trying to remember the thrum of the road and the way the seats had felt smooth under his ghostly fingers and the way Lydia’s perfume had smelled sweet in the recycled air and the way Jackson had looked in the rearview and caught Stiles’ eyes with his own, his mouth turning wide into a smile. 

Stiles follows the car and stops just before the turn into Peter’s driveway, stops and makes his way through the woods instead, his feet not quite touching the ground, his body gliding smooth through the roots and branches and leaves. There’s a quiet hum in the trees, but the canopy is still, and Stiles thinks it’s weird that he can’t hear any birds, that he doesn’t see any deer or rabbits, but then he remembers that the moon is full tonight and that there are wolves in the house, and that everything here must be able to feel it. 

The sun is dipping lower and lower beneath the horizon and Stiles can just make out the lights of the house a few yards away, shadows passing back and forth behind the windows, the soft hum of something old and familiar that someone had put on the stereo. Stiles slips around the side, his ghostly feet noiseless, and watches the men inside move towards the back of the house, towards the deck, towards the patio, where Stiles had watched Jackson and Lydia and all the others undress before the moon had taken them. 

He doesn’t see Peter through the window, and he can’t make out Jackson’s shape, but he catches a glimpse of Lydia walking through the kitchen, her dress small and tight, her fingers sharp around a glass of something red. She pauses in front of someone and places a petite hand on his arm and he says something, and she laughs in that fake way that Stiles has seen her laugh before, her head tilted back, her neck pale and inviting. The man turns a little towards Stiles, and Stiles sees now that he’s really just a boy, around Stiles’ own dead, ghostly age, curly hair and a worn hoodie and his hesitant smile paling under Lydia’s predatory gaze. 

Stiles slips through the wood of the front door and makes his way to the stairs, away from the lights and the music and away from Lydia’s gentle voice, and he walks up the steps without really walking, without his feet actually touching the floor, and the upper level is dark, but Stiles is so transparent that he doesn’t really have to worry about bumping into something, so he just stops at the first door that he comes to and slides quietly inside. There’s nothing but boxes, and Stiles moves around impatiently, stretching his hand through a couple, absently, trying to move them, trying to see what’s inside and around and behind them. 

He sighs and turns around to leave, and he realizes that the door is open now and that someone is standing in the entryway and at first Stiles thinks it’s Derek because he’s searching through the dust and dirt of this room for him and because he hasn’t seen him in five months and because Derek is the first thought that Stiles has in the morning and the last thought that Stiles has at night and the only thing he thinks about for every moment in between, but it isn’t him, he knows it isn’t him, and if Stiles were alive he would feel as if his heart had leapt into his throat, but he’s not alive, he will never be alive, and the person in the doorway says Stiles’ name and Stiles takes a stuttered, involuntarily inhale at the sound of Peter’s voice. 

“I thought that was you,” Peter says, and Stiles watches as Peter moves closer to him, his hands outstretched, his mouth open in a curious smile. 

Stiles doesn’t say anything, but it’s only because he doesn’t think he could. 

“We’re just getting ready to change. We have some wine downstairs if you’d like.” Peter moves smoothly and he places a hand on Stiles’ arm, and Stiles is cold and getting colder, so Peter’s fingers go right through him. “You’ll probably be more comfortable down there with Jackson and Lydia and the others. I mean, you don’t want to spend the whole night up here alone, do you?”

Stiles swallows and says, “Where’s Derek?” and it comes out worse than he meant it, raw and sad and everything Stiles was trying to hide, everything Stiles hasn’t let himself feel for five months. 

Peter pauses and draws his hands away. “Or maybe you’d prefer to get down to business,” he says, and his voice is icy there, unkind, and he turns around and starts moving back towards the door. 

Stiles doesn’t move at first, his feet still and solid, his body cold and unresponsive. 

“Well come on then,” Peter says, and makes an irritated gesture with his hand. 

And Stiles follows. 

***

It’s not how he thought it would be. 

This was never how he thought it would be. 

***

He expects to find Derek’s body in the cellar somewhere, tucked between boxes or something, expects to find Derek’s bloody and rotting corpse, expects Peter to laugh like a movie villain, expects Lydia to watch him watch Derek’s body in this cold and calculated way, expects Jackson to offer him a ride back home to his charred, dilapidated house so he can sit in his attic and look out the small window and watch another hundred years go by without even blinking. 

Instead, he finds Derek standing tall on the patio with the others, pulling his shirt off, stretching, rolling his shoulders back with anticipation of the full moon. His tattoo glistens under the light, and Stiles remembers kissing it, remembers placing two warm fingers on that patch of skin and tracing the pattern there, remembers this like he remembers everything. 

“Derek?” Stiles says, and fuck if that doesn’t hurt when it comes out. 

The others all pivot to look at him and Peter, and Stiles barely sees Jackson drop his cup of wine on the bricks, the glass shattering, Lydia jumping and spitting out a curse about her expensive shoes, and the boy beside her is already pulling off his hoodie and wrapping the cotton around and around his hand so he can pick up the broken pieces. Derek squares his shoulders before he turns around, and his face is emotionless, and Stiles knows that if he were still alive, he would already have stopped breathing by now, his heart lifeless in his chest, his blood cold. 

“Stiles,” Derek says, and it’s low and it’s detached, and Stiles looks down and then flickers once and then flickers again, and somewhere out on the patio, he hears Peter saying Stiles’ name, but it sounds nothing like the way Derek says it. 

“Stiles,” Derek says again, and it’s a little softer this time, and Stiles can feel heat rush through him like Derek’s just touched him, the heat that Stiles hasn’t felt in such a long time, and Stiles thinks that the distance between them might kill him all over again, so he takes a jerking step towards Derek, but Derek holds up his hands. “Don’t,” he says, and Stiles frowns in confusion and Peter places a hand on Stiles’ arm to hold him back, and Derek watches him and looks like he wants to growl, but doesn’t, and Stiles is so confused right now, so fucking confused as to what is happening, and the others have all started to change around them, change into wolves and bound off into the dark recesses of the woods, and Stiles can see each of them leave in his peripheral, until it’s just Derek and him and Peter, Peter’s hand turning into a claw on Stiles’ ghostly arm. 

Peter turns to Derek and says, “Play nice now,” his voice halfway between something vicious and something playful, halfway between the wolf and something else, and then he turns and takes off for the woods. 

Derek waits until Peter is fully gone before he closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s nothing above a whisper, nothing that isn’t sad and apologetic and full of something Stiles can’t even name, and Stiles wants to tell him how unfair the last five months have been, how fucking awful it was, wants to scream and yell and cry, but Derek is backing away, slowly, opening his eyes, and Stiles watches as they start turning ice blue in the moonlight. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and Stiles makes a sound like he’s choking. 

“I can’t explain it right now,” Derek says, and his mouth sounds full, his fangs descending sharp from his gums, and his ears are growing pointier and his face is becoming more hirsute, and Stiles has never seen him like this, has never seen Derek in transformation before, and somewhere deep down inside of him he thinks that it’s so unfair that he would see it here, see it now, like this. “I want to tell you everything, Stiles, but I can’t. You just have to trust me, okay?” 

Derek’s face is becoming longer and his hands are spreading out into claws, and Stiles can tell that it hurts to talk, but he’s talking anyway, and Derek says, “Please, Stiles.” 

And Derek says, “Please leave.”

And Stiles wants to say fuck you, Derek.

Stiles wants to say, fuck you for thinking that I would ever trust you again after waiting in that house for five fucking months without knowing whether you were dead or alive, without knowing where you were or if you even thought about me or if you even cared. 

Stiles wants to walk forward and grab Derek and push him down into the patio and hit him with his fists and watch Derek’s bare skin turn black and blue and purple and then watch it fade away in seconds and then Stiles wants to kiss him roughly on the mouth and feel the warmth of Derek’s arms around him and watch as Derek kisses back and watch as Derek bites down on Stiles’ ghostly neck and watch as the wolf inside of Derek rips its way out with bloody claws and fangs and fur. 

Stiles wants to say, I love you.

But the wolf never even gives him the chance. 

***

It’s not how he thought it would be.

This was never how he thought it would be. 

And Stiles runs. 

***

When Jackson finds him, he’s only mostly human. 

Jackson’s ears are still pointed and his fangs are still protruding, but his eyes are normal and he wraps a hand that’s only mostly a human hand around one of Stiles’ arms and Stiles picks himself off of the ground and forgets how he got there, his ghostly feet clean and untouched. The boy Stiles had seen with Lydia is just behind Jackson, and he’s covering his naked body like he’s ashamed, and Stiles feels uncomfortable all at once, like he’s overdressed somehow, like he’s the weird one and like it’s normal for two boys to be walking around the woods without clothes. 

Jackson’s hands are changing back now, and he pulls Stiles to him, his warmth shooting through Stiles like a lightning strike, and Stiles feel s like crying, but doesn’t, because he can’t think of anything worse to do right now besides that, even if it wouldn’t really be like crying, even if it would only be pretend.

“I’m sorry,” Jackson says, but for what, Stiles doesn’t know. 

“Everyone’s probably at the house by now,” Jackson says, and Stiles winces up at the sun, streaming through the leaves of the trees, warming the ground, but then looks back down again, and beside him Jackson is pulsating with heat, and Stiles just wants to close his eyes and bury himself in Jackson’s skin. “Do you want to go back there?” 

And Stiles wants to say no, but he knows that he can’t say no because that would mean that he would be leaving without Derek, and he promised himself on the way up here that he would never do that again, so he just nods instead. 

“Okay,” Jackson says. And then, absently, “This is Isaac,” and points to the boy on the other side of Stiles. 

“Hi,” Isaac says, and looks at Stiles curiously, like he’s not sure what to make of him, and Stiles wonders if Isaac has ever seen a ghost before now. 

“Hi,” Stiles says, and reaches out a hand, but when Isaac goes to shake it, his fingers slip completely through.   



End file.
